The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

(W)ait until 8/3 to introduce the Boehner plan – NOTHING will get signed by Obama before then. NOTHING!

It should have become crystal-clear when the White House-led debt ceiling talks broke off abruptly last Friday, after President Obama altered the terms of a deal that would have both cemented his re-election and permanently buried the GOP as the minority “half” of the bipartisan Party-In-Government, that he wants a default and what Monty over at Ace of Spades HQ succinctly calls DOOM!. It did become crystal-clear when Obama kept on blaming everybody but himself for the collapse while offering, to date, no plan. We could argue the “why”, but that would be a tinfoil-hat-swapping party (hint; the one-word explanation starts and ends with a “S”).

At that point, the Republicans had a rather strong opening position called Cut, Cap and Balance, one that already was voted out of the House. I’ll state right here and now that, even though I like it, it had no chance of actually becoming law. However, it, along with the equally-stalled House budget (which, while it did not address the debt ceiling and indeed would need about a $2.0 trillion increase in the debt ceiling to make it work through early 2013, addressed the larger issue of size and cost of government), stood as the only things that actually had any demonstrable support.

The first two fuck-ups actually predated the collapsed White House talks, one by a large margin. The continuing resolution to fund government through September 30 did absolutely, positively nothing to alter either the timing of the debt-ceiling crisis or the amount perceived to be necessary to get the next credit-card application date into early 2013. In fact, those of us who bitched about it not exactly cutting spending were told to shut up and wait for the debt ceiling battle. As I noted above, the House budget did change the latter slightly, but then again, that is as stalled and dead as Cut, Cap and Balance.

Senate Repulican “Leader” Mitch McConnell leaked the first Plan “B” (for Blame) – let Obama raise the debt ceiling on his own unless 2/3rds of Congress objects. It would have been, had it truly been a Plan “B” rather than Plan “Good, Solid B+”, an elegant trap for Obama. However, it was released weeks before the DOOM! date.

The third fuck-up was offering up $800 billion in tax hikes in those ultimately failed talks, presumably versus what the CBO calls the alternative fiscal scenario, which continues all current tax rates through 2021 rather than current tax law. News flash – by 2018, the taxes under that scenario already would be more than the 50-year (1951-2000) average of 18.06% of GDP, and then it would permanently be stuck at the even-higher 18.4% of GDP it reaches by 2021. That tax-pledge break would, had only Obama been savvy enough to accept it, have been strike three on fiscal matters for the GOP in the last 21 years, and functionally the same as the broken “No New Taxes” pledge from former President George H.W. Bush that was strike one.

The fourth fuck-up was McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner getting a “broad” agreement with Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid that had only a nebulous $2.8 trillion “deficit reduction” number and no tax increases with with absolutely, positively no common baseline. Reid, who unlike either McConnell or Boehner, is at least someone who has a half-assed fucking clue on how to lead, played the Stupid Party “leaders” like a pair of bongo drums by claiming the $1 trillion in “savings” from reductions in expenditures in the Global War on Terror everybody else already agreed to as, ultimately, the major part of his “deficit reduction”.

The fifth fuck-up was Boehner going first on the basis of that agreement. Actually, I’ll call it two fuck-ups to make it an even half-dozen; going first, and going before Obama forces a default. Going first allowed Reid to put in just enough non-GWOT “deficit reduction” to beat Boehner in that category, at least with version 1.0.0. Boehner did put in a minimal amount of effort to beat Reid with version 1.0.1 (note to self; update the previous post with that minimal effort).

As I stated above, there is NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING, Obama will sign before he forces a default and DOOM!. It actually has been too late to avoid DOOM! since July 21st as Obama can sit on a bill for 10 days (plus Sundays) before he has to do something with it. Proof of that is that Reid, who has served his role as Obama’s roadblock well, declared Boehner’s version 1.0.0 plan dead-on-arrival.

All Boehner has done is make the “ceiling” the GOP can reach the Ohio Two-Step instead of Cut, Cap and Balance. By releasing it before anything the Democrats put forward either get to a vote or get to a head, he lost any chance of getting even that modest concession.

6 Responses to “How the GOP f’ed it all up (f-bomb warning)”

[…] ceiling remnants: AiPolitics on a couple big fibs in the President’s most recent speech and No Runny Eggs on how the GOP really hosed the negotiations (complete with frustrated f-bombs).Lurking in the background of our debt and the ever-increasing […]

And what is the unspoken deep dark truth – it’s all bullshit. Both sides.

Washington has NO INTENTION fo cutting spending, period. Including Boner. His insulting proposal was scored by the CBO as cutting one billion dollars this year. ONE ! In DC that’s called ‘a rounding error’. Chump change. Grease for the wheels.

All the rest was ‘in the out years’, IOW ‘down the road’, where future Congress’s will wipe it out.

It’s like a heroin junky saying ‘I’m gonna shoot up $ 1000 worth every day this year, but I’ll cut back to $ 999 a day. 5 years from now, I’ll try to cut back to $ 900. And ten years from now, a mere $ 500 / day.

Firstly, I got shuffled over here by virtue of your very good HA efforts. I aim to be a frequent visitor; your work efforts look inviting.

This is an excellent primer of the last fortnight’s debt ceiling kerfuffle and, for the most part, I agree with your analysis.

However — and I do not wish to be a Pollyanna about all this — but it is an evidence of conservative strength that we are having a protracted discussion IN THE MIDDLE OF SUMMER about something as fundamentally boring as a debt ceiling in the first place.

Think back. If it is as so many of our liberal opponent like to point out that during the Reagan years, this was raised 18 times, then that sure whizzed by me without attracting too much attention.

It is not that such matters are not serious, it’s just that, heretofore, many of us have been mirror-fogging mouth breathers and now, because we have a raving, egotistical, narcissistic, incompetent chief executive, a coterie of sycophants chosen from the faculty lounges of various bastions of ivory towered academia, and a congress whose business as usual stinks of putrefied back room bargaining that it has been so repugnant as to attrct our attention.

The excesses of The Chicago Jesus’s initial months in office, The Stimulatio, Obama’s consistently demonstrated ineptness, and the hundreds of cases of government over-reach resulted in the elections of 2010. We are now awake, vigilant, angry, and motivated.

I am inclined to believe that Boehner and the other clods (both left and RINO right) will continue these shenanigans with diminishing success. Just because the elections of 2010 occurred, it does not mean we can rest. Today it’s the debt ceiling. In six months, if Boehner is successful in limiting its rise, it will be the debt ceiling again. The it will be the 2012 elections. Then..?

If we are lucky to wrest control of the senate from the Democrats and seize the White House, then we will have to stand guard over these people (especially if the new POTUS is Romney, just sayin’) to ensure there is no back-sliding and DC-itus.

But that we were able to recognize this crap and hold Boehner’s feet to the fire is a tribute to the fact we are now awake and alert. Remember, owing to the 2010 elections, we have quite a junior varsity in the state legislatures warming up and waiting to take the field.

Mr Boehner & Co., you are on notice that you may very well have your asss primaried.

You missed the ‘Gang of Six’ coming out to undercut the possibility of standing behind ‘Cut, Cap, and Balance’. All water under the bridge. This battle can still be won decisively.

Indpendents have been scare-mongered by Dingy Harry, BHO, and the rest of the corrupt Progressive gang (including MSM)into falsely believing not raising the ceiling is a “default” armageddon scenario. This is a trap the Progressive gang has set for themselves -since they have offered no solutions and independents are actually paying attention due to the scare mongering. To close the trap, the GOP needs to have something to call a take or leave it ‘final offer.’ Right now that’s the Boehner plan, as flawed as it is in the numbers. But the numbers don’t matter right now. What matters is the 3-D political chess game to close the trap Progressive gang has set for itself. If Boehner’s plan passes the House today – it’s check mate. The Progressives then own turning down the only available “solution” (fully credited to Boehner by independents) vs. admitting to an agitated nation they were full of s**t all along.